Sometimes the editor has a pleasant surprise which is not so pleasant:
the proliferation of good poetry submitted to this magazine is amazing.
Therefore the problem: too much good poetry, too little space and too
many commitments, makes the editor shiver with the realization that one
can never please everyone. Ygdrasil was founded on the principle of
the "freedom of the poet"; it was also founded to allow the editors
great freedom in publishing what and whenever they wanted. For the
most part, the editors have followed this belief. Now that Ygdrasil
has become one of the (if not "the") premier poetry magazines on the
Internet, we find ourselves in the position of having to either turn
down good poetry, or delay its publication many months ahead. Authors
do not always understand this. The lure of "immediate" publication,
especially on the Internet, is one of the major considerations for
publishing in this medium. "Old style" print publications were very
slow to publish anything, and it might take a year before one's works
were acknowledged. But times have changed, and computers have all made
us increasingly paranoid of time delays. What once took days, now
takes only seconds, and if we have to wait because of a slow CPU we grow
increasingly impatient, if not indignant of the fact that we cannot have
something in a second where it might take a minute. Even our music
reflects this impatience. Perhaps someday someone will realize that
when time intervals shrink, the mind might not have the efficiency
to properly rationalize ideas, just process facts. This is not
an ideal situation. We become slaves of our own technology, not our
technology becoming slaves to us and therefore our ideals, dreams and
fantasies. This is in direct contradiction to how good poetry must
be conceived, born and written. But that is precisely how most of our
poetry today IS written: fast, furious and, menacing. Time for
contemplation has now passed. Immediacy is everything. From rap
to rock, this is our immediate poetry. It is no longer written on
a page, but preformed like some circus clown in drag. Register
the "performance"; don't think, register, register, register.
Life without contemplation is bliss. Rap your way into an ecstasy;
catch a harbour-front disease. And remember how Cleopatra's palace
crumbled, and the fast Roman ships burned. No one knows how amber
captures what we now must learn. There cannot be a fossil where there
never was a heart. You see the bright commitment: don't refuse the
clever start. To return to the beginning: a toppled palace proves
the most ecstatic interference, from a god who has no goal. Know
the deep foundation; know your place in hell; know where you might
be the devil...(know your doctor well)...
Once the doors of Janus close, the stars leave us alone...and the stars
are the poet's inspiration...poets understand, what the others
cannot understand themselves. Great poetry never allows the stars
to falter in their shining. It cannot. It must not. Therefore let
the poets wait; let the readers wait; good poetry is always worth
waiting for...and believe it or not...is always on time.
Klaus J. Gerken

VASILIS AFXENTIOU About 2,500 words
Mallows for Seline
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seline woke and said nothing, just lay there in the sheets, watching
Dino carefully but not daring to make a sound for fear he would wake
up. I am with you, he seemed to be saying, I will be with you from
now on. I will be with you, Seline, forever.
Seline turned over and closed her eyes.
"You do not know how to give," he had said last night. "You try, but
do not know how. And you must learn what you want in return."
What was an artist doing in Athens without a job? What did she lose
that she was searching for in a country only vaguely familiar to her?
Memories. Ah yes. And endless stories: Parents who uprooted themselves
and her from the island, many years back, to find a sure job and a decent
life across the Atlantic.
She had memories of running and playing by the water, memories of feeding
herself and smelling the sea breeze, hearing it rustle through the pink
and white flowers of the holyhock and the flat green leaves of the vine
on the warm portch, and learning to swim and dress herself, even memories
of learning to fish and sail.
Seline Politou, once stuffer of fish, once assistant to her marine
taxidermist father on a coastal village of the island, lowered her
thorough-blue eyes, and overcome lifted the covers off herself and sat
up on the edge of the bed.
With effort she got up.
Back then her father and she would turn dead, empty-eyed fish into
handsome, live-looking, trophies that customers hung on their walls,
for friends to admire, but eventually neglected. Seline now mulled
over the many things she neglected, had not learned from the aberrant
stares of the angled 'prizes'.
The shower's warm water made her tingle. She closed her eyes, leaned
back and opened her mouth. She spat out the refreshing stuff several
times as the troubled night almost faded in lieu of what the day had
to promise.
But what did it promise?
She slipped her jeans on, and went to the canvas. She didn't wake Dino
up, but brought with her a mug of Nescafe' and settled in the chair. The
pungency of the black brew briefly dispersed the persistent sleepiness
in her head.
She had seen the place again and again.
She saw herself give a hefty shove to the deserted, wooden quay and row
till she was well away. Then turn and look back. She savored the crisp,
stretching splendor around their sea side home with the slumped, patched
red roof, the airy porch, the flowers, the table. But for the vision
inside her, she would never see the place that had first nurtured her
again--a disco/restaurant now took its place. And she wanted to so much,
more than anything else in the world.
But her fingers today felt thick, clumsy, undisciplined. The tips were
blistered with splotches of colors and the thumb cramped from fatigue.
"How are your strokes proceeding?" Anastasi had asked her at the studio
the other day, giving her a pat as she stretched the knotted muscles of
her back.
"Just fine."
He had looked at her with those knowing eyes, weighing and regarding,
as he stood in front of her, twice attempting to say something that he
did not.
She enjoyed watching his curiously delicate manner. He used his large
hazel eyes to tell more than his tongue--but that morning she pretended
to busy herself preparing, not looking at him for long, for she knew he
was probing her. She had even evaded their usual patter.
"You're not well?" he had finally said.
"Not very. It'll pass."
He put the stool and foot rest in place, shifted ebulliently with brisk,
spirited movement. And he paused a little. He did not sit immediately,
but delayed this moment of focus. He relinquished himself to it as
thoroughly as to his muse. He was never hurried at this particular
stage; he never rushed at this point. It was, she thought, a kind of
liturgy in him, just as if he was performing, he was undividedly
surrendering.
Yet Anastasi could be as utterly grave or severe. He taught as an
evangelist man preached. It was for this thoroughness, she imagined,
that she felt esteem for him.
Seline now raised the brush...
...The pristine break of day was balmy and bright and promised good
voyaging. She took a hefty whiff of iodine, and her boyish bust bulged.
The sail fluttered a bit and she pushed the tiler out to trim it. The
bag swelled with salty breeze. The skiff leaped forward hissing as it
skimmed the gentle brew like a gull's wing through air. The boat
cleaved the sleek bay in two, tacking into the draught. Bit-by-bit
the cove receded and soon melded into the checkerboard of gold-brown
fields in the backdrop. Ahead spanned kilometers of sparkling Aegean.
The small boat pranced onward banging on the ripening crests, lifting
a coruscating spray and dozens of little morning rainbows...
...the reverie then scattered into glimmering fragments. She laid the
brush back down on a desk scattered with sketches and empty white sheets
of paper, a copy of Chosen Country by J. dos Passos, and Mary Magdalene
portrayed weeping.
She had heard Dino get up.
She shut her eyes. The tiny garret closed in on her. A sudden vortex
made her slump to one side. She caught herself from falling just in
time, and sprung her slight, lean torso up straight on the uncomfortable
chair.
Two years, Anastasi had said. Two hard years for the eye to break in.
"Don't give up," was his favorite infamous statement, "you come to me
with a perfect sense of proportion."
She whiffed the heavy blue smoke meandering into her cubby-hole study
from the Gauloises Dino was smoking in the kitchen. Her throat tightened
and her nostrils pinched. He was making Greek coffee. Its rich
fragrance mingled, somewhere along the way, with the silty wafts from
his cigarette and made her head whirl. Oblivious to her discomfort she
could hear him murmuring/singing, " Take my hand/Take my whole life
too..." to himself--the King was The King for Dino.
She sat there listening to him sing. His torso yielded slightly, his
back bowing a little with the lyric. Tall and nimble. Crude and
rasping, the timbre seesawed, and she pondered what it ment. What was
going on inside him to make this harmony come out?
She turned away and listlessly stared at the only two paintings in the
apartment, one was an Andrew Wyeth and the other a Norton Simon. They
represented her wealth and were sent by her father, who had bought them
in Astoria six months after Seline had departed from her home.
She had crossed an ocean and a sea and had been living since her arrival
in the ancient neighborhood of Plaka in a house of post-classical
architecture that vaunted better days right after the war. The family
was moderately wealthy and an old Athenian family, endorsing the old
ways, trying hard not to be assimilated by the onrush of world changes
fostered by satellite television and her media-nurtured generation.
From childhood Seline had known that her future was already planned out.
She would be sent to college, earn her degree, and marry a man with a
solid profession, perhaps even somebody like her father. But all that
had changed when one morning she left her home with rucksack bearing
down on her thin shoulders and trust in a calling.
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry:
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
came the Burns' hyperbole in the form of a tv commercial for scotch
whiskey from the kitchen where Dino sat.
They had been together for almost a year, then she was twenty-three and
he twenty-five. He was like nobody she had ever met before. He didn't
worry any more about the years ahead than did cattle in green pastures.
There was a primal manner in his air and a puerile spontaneity that
uninhibited her. He had a careering way about him, like a twentieth
century gladiator, all was intense sport, love-making, drinking, prancing
his shiny second-hand Harley as if he were Marlon Brando and she the
counter waitress.
His family had been killed in a train disaster when he was four. He had
been on his own since he was twelve, when he had done away with the
source of his obstacles by hurtling over a glass-strewn wall. The
opportunity had come, just before Christmas dawn, another inmate and he
had scaled the shard-sowed barrier to freedom, bloodied and frost-bitten.
Nightmares of the orphanage shattered his sleep often.
A garage owner had offered him a job and Dino had taken his courage in
both hands. Though he was still a boy then, he grew up fast to become
a man. Yet the strong arms transformed to comforting wings at night.
She could have let her life surrender into his, and part with all that
tortured her, walk away from her own honeyed trial, into the tangy
freedom his world promised...
Meanwhile the canvas stood waiting. Elegantly and immaculately silent,
skillfully tormenting, crafting her pain, like picks etching away in her
heart. It ignored her and the fever in her hands. Two years had passed
four months ago, and still the hues did not fit--clashed like cymbals.
The colors dragged slowly, sluggishly, producing a cacophony--rebellion
in parody. There were days when she painted adeptly, but few. She
could not account for it; if she could only do that.
Dino's deep, black eyes--she could feel it--were upon her from where he
sat, this minute. She could sense their moot, fixed look. It had been
a bad night, last night. A bad night for love and dreams. There had
been depression in the dark of the room, a tiredness she felt more
often than not. He had finally left her and gone to the other end of
the bed, and she had lain alone and silent, and sirocco-warm tears
ebbed out of her, scouring the hours by.
The night faded once more whence it came.
She massaged the thumb muscle to lessen the stiffness. Veins stood out
like winding blue worms on her forearm and on the back of her hand.
She dipped the brush into the dish of solvent.
A straight dark line like clotted blood scarred the once soft tissue
behind the finger nails. Pigment from the repeated scraping at the
palette--a vice, an exercise in maintaining the wounds fresh and visible.
All credits of the craft. All the visible signs of hard, diligent work.
Texture no.
Dino brushed by her on his way out. She smelled the tobacco on his
clothes. He halted and stood by the door not speaking, then closed it
behind him.
"The canvas is like a man," came Anastasi's first words that decisive
March noon. Seline's first lesson about love had begun. "He will want
and want some more. You will hate and love him. Give yourself to him
and he will give everything to you. 'Love is, above all, the gift of
oneself',' someone once said."
Anastasi had then begun to paint. Seline's last minute doubts dissolved
with certainty. Each undulating stroke charged a longing that had so
long been left yearning for its mate. The colors mingled and blended,
entwined and braided, melded and plexed and fused weaving a dulcet
onomatopoeia plenishing her every pore, progressing so ever softly
turning, spinning longingly sheer spring air into a depth that had
no end. The dappling of the tints echoed on, ignoring, conquering time.
"The moan of doves in immemorial elms/And murmuring of innumerable
bees--do you see him, do you see Master Tennyson's sigh in the strokes?
You are in love, no?" Anastasi had remarked, putting the brush down.
Yes.
But the canvas before her today seemed unconcerned, aloof, like Dino.
Both promised ecstasy, both wanted her soul. But she had not the
strength to serve two masters.
When she had awaken that morning it was a comfort to know that the
entire day would belong to her to be alone. But by the time she got
through mixing the easels, even the light burden of the brush was too
much for her. She had not slept much during the night, she realized,
for her eyelids drooped more often than not. She had a drifty feeling
that made her dreamlike and lose herself.
"Rest if you must,/but don't you quit." came Cushing's words from the
poem Anastasi had drilled into her memory two years before.
Finally, she put the palette down. The morning sun rays dabbed the
wall next to her with a craggy segment of column from the Parthenon
beyond. She found herself glide into oblivion on the chair. She dozed.
She was overwhelmed by her dreaming of her mother, and felt happiness.
She was seldom like this, not ever since she had met Dino. But now,
like a torrent, the cumulated snags in their relationship suddenly all
deluged upon her, and she was surprised that she did nothing to stop
the onset. She recollected afresh the quarrel the night before,
recalled the options remaining--put to her; about the painting, she
could not remember what had been said to be wrong with it; possibly
it was not the painting; she did not know. She retained only the
oppressive, mostly mute, suffocation of Dino's demands.
Now, at this recollection she began to tremble for an instant,
uncontrollably, and gasp for more air to enter her lungs. It had been
a turbulent episode, the worst; like an Aegean August gale, with only
a hint of warning, that drowns one unsuspectingly. She was sinking,
she told herself. She was feeble against his wants--whatever these were.
And perhaps the giving on her part would never quench the needing on
his....
The fingers felt better. She dipped the brush once more and waited.
And the vision came again, this time urging and stronger than before.
She picked up the palette and gave, yielding herself to the strokes.
There was a knock on the door that she did not hear.
She was solely aware that the mellifluous strokes did not come from the
brush but from her. Like heartbeats, they were as much hers as her
heart's. A presence was there, completing a metamorphosis. Unlike
before, she knew, the threshold now was scaled, the union of her and
her dream realized. She painted, all of her, and did not stop her care
because now she could not. Like the pulsing in her chest, her will no
longer participated in its existence. A being had been freed, and free
it reigned over a kingdom of two. The knocking stopped, the footsteps
died softly away behind the closed door, and the room glowed in the
autumn morning with Seline and her island home, her very own place in
the spring, to look at and be close to wherever forever.
END
JANET KUYPERS
Good Bye
~~~~~~~~
1985
A tear rolls down
my cheek
I read the note
once again
"Good bye"
I was in love
Why?
why did he leave
me?
I need him now
more than
I've ever needed him
before
"Good bye"
JANET KUYPERS
After the Bomb
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1986
after the bomb
there's no longer anything to see
there's nothing to see but ashes
and the charred remains of what used to be
planet earth
there's no talking
for there is no one to hear you
there's no longer anything to hear
no voices, no music, no laughter
just the wind
and there's nothing more to smell
no roses, no perfumes, no fresh baked bread
just the fire
for, you see
after the bomb
there's no longer anything
JANET KUYPERS
An Extension
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Winter 1986
A new life, a bundle of joy
your flesh, your blood
your love, your life
this little child, an individual
is yet an extension of you
A new life, a bundle of joy
your hair, your eyes
your laugh, your cry
this little child, a separate life
is yet an extension of you
A new life, a bundle of joy
mirroring your smile
reflecting your love
being your life
this little child, this life that is new
will always be an extension of you
JANET KUYPERS
Simple Things
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1986
A patch of daisies
waving in the wind
on the side of an
isolated road
A butterfly with
vibrant red and
yellow wings
flying through the
branches of a berry bush
a kitten cleaning her paw
in front of a fireplace
lit at night
some of the most
beautiful things
are also the most
simple ones
JANET KUYPERS
Sometimes
~~~~~~~~~
1986
Sometimes
I look at myself
My inner self
But I can't see a clear picture
Who am I
Sometimes
I see a business woman
Typing on the
Computer
Thumbing through
Large Books
Sometimes
I see an obnoxious teenager
Painting her
Toenails
During a slumber party
Sometimes
I see a crying child
Just wanting
Some
Peace
Of
Mind
And sometimes
I only see
A person
Trying to see who she is
JANET KUYPERS
The Joshua Tree
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1986
The Joshua tree
is a tree with long branches
said to point toward
the Promised land
You remind me of
the Joshua tree
because you help me
and lead me
in the right direction
JANET KUYPERS
Trapped
~~~~~~~
1996
I feel like a prisoner
locked in
a never-ending
maze
Trapped
Confused
Is there
any way out?
Twists and
turns,
and never a
moment
without the
greatest feeling
of severe
frustration
and
absolute
hopelessness
Trapped
Confused
Is there
any way
out?
JANET KUYPERS
Untitled
~~~~~~~~
1986
A song has never made me cry so hard
my work has lost its meaning
and life has gone too far
JANET KUYPERS
What To Do
~~~~~~~~~~
1986
How many nights have I stayed awake
crying until i could no longer
the number must be countless
those nights are only too familiar to me now
what's the sense?
the pain I'm feeling never goes away
It haunts me like a childhood fear
and never releases its hold on me
the agony is indescribable
and I don't know what to do
And whenever there seems to be a time
when I haven't a trouble
it's there
And it always finds its way back to me
Your Love, Dear Man, is as Lovely to Me
translated by John L. Foster
JANET KUYPERS
1992
Your love, dear man, is as lovely to me
As sweet soothing oil to the limbs of the restless,
As clean ritual robes to the flesh of Gods,
As fragrance of incense to one coming home
Hot from the smells of the street.
It is like nipple-berries ripe in the hand,
Like the tang of grainmeal mingled with beer,
Like wine to the palate when taken with white bread.
While unhurried days come and go,
Let us turn to each other in quiet affection,
Walk in peace to the edge of old age.
And I shall be with you each unhurried day,
A woman given her wish: to see
For a lifetime the face of her lord.
What's the sense?
I don't know what to do
CLINTON V DU PLESSIS: EVANGELIS VAN DIE NIHILISME
songs and shadows from the past
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ringing out from our blue heavens
solwandle ngudle, suicide by hanging
from our deep seas breaking round
bellington mampe, cause of death not disclosed
over everlasting mountains
james tyita, suicide by hanging
where the echoing crags resound
suliman salojee; jumped from 7th floor window
caals the spirit of our country
ngeni gaga, natural causes
of the land that gave us birth
pongoloshe hoye, natural causes
in the golden warmth of summer
hangula shonyeka, suicide
in the chill of winter's air
leong pin, suicide by hanging
in the surging life of springtime
ah yan, suicide by hanging
in the autumn of despair
alpheus madiba, suicide by hanging
we are thine
and we shall stand
alfred makaleng, cause of death not disclosed
at thy will to live or perish
o south africa, dear land
repeat chorus to fade...
CLINTON V DU PLESSIS: EVANGELIS VAN DIE NIHILISME
interim report
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
this country has
too many poor people with nothing who couldn't give a fuck
too many unfit boisterous pregnant students try to study at
too few representative universities with
too many conservative lecturers
too high is the tuition fees &
too short the vacations
this country has
too many squatters
too many directors- general & deputy-directors-general
too many people inhabit the prisons
too many mercedes benzes are financed by mandrax, there are
too many locusts &
too few dolphins
too few beaches & warm seas with waves
nothing distracts the criminal & serial killer
blood flows like rain against the windows
there are no miracles happening in the townships
there are
too many holistic approaches
too many magazines filled with tits without stars
too many radio stations
with phone in programmes & heroes
like reformed far-right activists & sex therapists
too many intolerant democrats & strippers
too many attractive jolly escorts
too many imported streched sedans
too many cellular sluts & and too many traditional leaders
with their induna & impi
too few jobs &
too many consultants &
too much money is worth
too little
there are
too few warm swimmingpool weeks
the wind dusts relentlessly
there is
no purposeful interchange of words & ideas
no enlightened beacons against narrowmindedness
too few meaningful debates
too far removed are promises from delivery
and between truth & accusations
too many shit-stained mirrors
there is
too much transparency
not enough accountability;
god! i passionately hate this country.
RON TAVALIN
Tall Trees
~~~~~~~~~~
tall trees, trees hang low from the weight
of their own late summer leaves,
thick with the green-ness and the cool-ness of being
tall trees, trees sway lazily as the wind brushes up
against them, they smile and stretch
lazily, carelessly caught up in the full-ness of being
tall trees, trees bend easily and forgivingly
with their long simple grace,
unashamed in the naked-ness and the whole-ness of being
tall trees,
the Slender-ness of fingers, of arms, of legs
the Slender-ness of branches, wind and neck
sing song-speak in whispers and promises
the language of your eyes, your face, your finger tips
your hair your hands your tapered grip
the Slender-ness of your voice
falling all around me as stone cold summer rain. . .
You are to me all of the Slender-ness
of tall trees.
RON TAVALIN
wounds
~~~~~~
The soft impressions that your fingers leave in my flesh
their nimble weight remains upon me as so much scar tissue
from wounds exquisite (that flies swarm around lapping up their
sweetness in the
delusion that in so doing they will become canonized)
wounds in places where Christ bore our sins
wounds on my hands, my feet
(my hands which cannot feel either ice or flame
to which art or friendship or nose-picking is unknown
my feet, neither fleet or practical
good for propping up and very little else)
but these wounds that they bear
(where an angel named "providence" has carved her name)
the nimble weight of these beloved wounds
is the only evidence that I was ever loved by you
and I will never let them heal.
an angel got caught in my throat.
when an angel got caught in my throat
the words had nowhere else to go.
And so they leaked out helplessly from my eyes
I couldn't=B9t catch them all (my hand refused to close)
and they fell and broke into a thousand pieces
(whose pieces had pieces and dust and atoms and are fine bits of clouds by
now)
each one a different name
they fell scattered across my lap
left a fabulous mess upon my legs (the stains will have to wear out)
I felt a little foolish (not ashamed), but clearly
there was little left to do but laugh.
RON TAVALIN
Schoolboys
~~~~~~~~~~
Schoolboys sitting up straight at desks
blind and day dreaming
schoolboys struggling through tests
marooned hours ago and hair trigger horny
ruminating about girls, of
clumsy stubby fingers
inside of wet girls: viscous, slippery and paper-like
women filled to running over with "adults only" sexuality
who ache to be screwed but are too busy being
just so many fine glossy dots beneath their father=B9s beds.
Schoolboys distracted,
peering through the chipped radiator=B9s liquid heat
rocking back and forth on their hands
useless feet dangling inches from dull floors.
Schoolboys adrift in fractions and Chaucer
and the GNP of wartime Germany,
Schoolboys enraptured by visions
of endless wealth and plenty,
mansions filled to running over
with enormous bare breasted porsches
a world that their father's could only dream of
a world that lay waiting just beyond the bell,
Schoolboys too busy
threshing soft lint from lunch money.
CINDY DUHE
The Marriage of Oedipus and Electra
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(A minister stands, with his back facing the audience, at the diagonal
front, left side of the stage. Facing the audience, is Oedipus, who is
wrapped in a long, brown toga. Benches are positioned diagonally behind
him on the left and right sides, with enough room in between to form an
aisle. The left side is reserved for the bride's father, Agamemnon,
while the right side is fit to include Oedipus' mother, Jocasta. The
wedding march sounds, and down the aisle, Electra walks, from the right
side of the stage, with her father by her side. After she has reached
Oedipus, her father seats himself on the left bench. Agamemnon and
Jocasta glance at each other, then quickly look back at their children.
The minister begins the ceremony.)
Minister- Dearly beloved, today we gather to unite the souls of Oedipus
and Electra, whose love for each other be stronger than eight children
of Hercules, fifty Titans, and a whole team of oxen. Now, when I speak
of love, I mean it in the most pure of senses. (Electra and Oedipus
glance at each other) Love is a sacred bond that cannot be broken by
even the most forthcoming temptations. As Oedipus hears the Sirens
call, he can only be as strong as to do nothing to further their
attempts at his loins. (Oedipus glances back at his mother, briefly)
And, as Electra is beckoned by the many, mighty Greek warriors..who pine
after her face and her figure whilst away at war,..(Electra glances back
at her father, briefly).. little will she do to even pay mind to their
petty efforts. They shall not defile love and all of its most sacred
meanings. For, it is far stronger than any man or beast shall
encounter. (they both look down at the floor) Their love....a love that
can only bring a sense of mirth to the barer and joy to the partaker.
Oedipus, do you swear, by the holy deities that sit atop Mount Olympus'
highest peak, that you shall love, honour, and cherish Electra,...in
sickness and in health, in wealth and in poverty, for better or for
worse, in good times and in bad, (carrying on incessantly) through thick
and thin, whilst waxing and waning, night and day, weekdays and
weekends, rhythm days and the rest of the month, Monday through Sunday,
noon to midnight....
Oedipus- (angry) Are you just about finished?
Minister- (wrapping it up, in a faster pace) And for as long as each of
you shall live on in storybook fashion?
Oedipus- I do.
Minister- And do you, Electra, swear, by the holy deities that sit atop
Mount Sinai...Ooop, I suppose that's the wrong time...well, at any rate,
will you love, honour, and cherish Oedipus,...in sickness and in health,
in wealth and in poverty, for better or for worse, in good times and in
bad...
Electra- (wishing to leave) How much longer is this going to be?
Minister- (wrapping it up, in a faster pace) And all of the other
oppositions to common and uncommon sense, for as long as each of you
shall live in storybook fashion?
Electra- I do.
Minister- You may now kiss the bride.....Ooops, wait a
minute....Hold!.....I forgot to ask....is there anyone here who opposes
this wedding? Let them speak now, or forever hold their peace!
(Agamemnon and Jocasta look up, with words biting their tongues, as the
curtains fall)
(End of Play)
CINDY DUHE
Feng Shui
~~~~~~~~~
(An apartment is filled to the brim with props. It is the home of
Alexander McHale, a superstitious packrat, as strongly blessed with
possessions as his belief in the occult. A barely prominent couch
remains in the center of the apartment, not to be confused with the
large junk heaps all around the room. On the couch, bits and pieces of
boardgames have fallen adrift, along with various pieces of clothing,
which should have been laundered some time ago. The piles of clothing
separate just enough space on the floor to create a pathway through the
filth. On a coffee table, just in front of the couch, plates with old,
decaying food sit, staring into the audience's conscience, waiting for
the moment that they are to be taken to an even larger dumpster,
preferably out of this habitat. The walls feel only complete by
suffering the same injustice as the rest of this place. Makeshift
cabinets, along with bric-a-brac display cases, show themselves, in
their lacking appearance, making clear that clutter can be a
multi-directional force. A door, to the right side of the stage, stands
with chips on the finish and old, useless tacks firmly affixed to its
surface. The sound of the door being unlocked alarms the entrance of
Alexander, along with a respected Feng Shui artist, Djung Kai, who was
sought out to bring peace and prosperity by the alignment of his home
furnishings. As Alex enters, he guides the way for Djung Kai to
follow. Djung Kai is a typical mustachioed image of a Chinese man,
wearing the clothes expected from such a person. As he walks in, his
mouth drops and he begins to look weak.)
Djung Kai- (under his breath) I do not know...how one...human...is to
live in such a....place.
Alex- (enthusiastically) Go ahead and take a look around. You're the
master!
(Djung Kai is barely able to wade through the massive piles of junk. He
shakes his head, alot, while examining the many items in the room.)
Alex- (after Djung Kai has examined things for a moment) (eagerly) So,
can you help me?
(Djung Kai remains focused on looking at the many objects on the floor
and around the room. When he is questioned, he looks up at Alex, with
mouth agape, looking at him as though he were crazy. Alex's smile never
leaves his face. Djung and Alex are Yin and Yang at this moment; very
opposite.) (The curtain closes)
CYNDI PHILLIPS
Whispering Mother .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tell the wind to stop whispering and time will stand still .
Because the way of the wind always makes a person feel. Although
time seems to go by so fast . Remember the memories you make
together will always last. Sometimes people tell you to slow
down and enjoy life, but sometimes the wind whispering cuts
like a knife. Even though you will always have one another ,
there's no one like your beloved mother .
RUTH DAIGON
NEVERTHELESS
~~~~~~~~~~~~
we are thankful for small miracles,
the sky flaunting its dazzle,
and days tall as promise.
Although we've lost track of the alphabet,
someone will read aloud to us
or chant a litany of sounds,
bluer than air,
cleaner than numbers
a tongue we've never learned
a voice we've never heard
but something we have known all our lives.
The hours lie stored in linen,
and we're pearled
for one last migration. Along the way,
people die for the smallest reasons.
Nevertheless,
our world begins inside the green
century. We savor the earth and
travel the furrowed planet.
Like nocturnal animals
we are always vanishing,
always there.
Shadows beckon ahead, we grow
large and drink the wind.
Neverthelesss,
we wait for laughter
a sky drunk with sunlight
and after the sudden dark,
when earth turns to air,
we greet the final stun of silence.
RUTH DAIGON
UNLIT PLACES
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The dead complain we lack
the skill to keep them buried
but that's the earth's job.
There's no safe burial ground.
They'll shine up through the grave
spreading their affection.
Offered refuge under markings
and memorials, they refuse and
wait for us in unlit places
tapping their white canes--
the terrible patience
of those with time.
In the slow caress of years
our weight is doubled by
the burden of others
we cultivate and carry
and deep in the future
children keep us alive.
RUTH DAIGON
IN THIS WATCHING PLACE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
there is only this house
this room this field and a tree
pulling away from its roots
a trickle of water
like a thin strand of wire
drips from the tap
a fly perches on the rim
of a bowl wings lifting lowering
polishing the silence
light spreads its slow stain
around the empty coffee cup
and the quieter it is
the slower time passes
as i listen to my breath
the oldest sound i know
RUTH DAIGON
TAKING TIME BY THE HAND
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While sunlight touches lightly
a room almost remembered where
the dark lies heavy on her lips
she skips through the past
and dreams of the future
as though it were gone.
She sets new traps for ancient
dreams, preserving the present
although it's a lie--like Monet
pinching off green for a winter-
veined landscape where everything
floats in the lake of his eye. She pours
sand into clocks until years
turn inward to sunburned summers
where childhood frisks.
With the long sleep still
light years away, she rises to morning's
extravagance, air wrapped in silk,
abundance of sky, and perched
like a cock on a dung hill
she's crowing the morning.
RUTH DAIGON
ON THE BRINK
~~~~~~~~~~~~
She knows the art of lying still,
sleeping with the invisible in the windless
dark and bedded warmth of night.
She knows the little hauntings, the old scenery
waiting in the wings, the moon on a thread,
the slow swing of the year.
She knows how to wait with the cicadas
for seventeen summers and sing without promise
until the white weather of dreams.
She knows childhood's land of sticks and stones,
fluid days, and how to lie in snowy fields
leaving behind corpses of angels.
She knows how the old spend their days
arranging comb, brush and last night's
news while moonlight seeps through windows.
She knows when the tide comes in, waves
lapping at her feet, and she
in her woolen bathing suit,
on the brink of everything she does not know.
RUTH DAIGON
IN THE MEASURING OF BREATH
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Light cartwheels into morning
returning to the same spot as if it
knew the way, sheets sticky
with summer, the scald of August.
Air glows, sweat jewels his chest
and the future hangs suspended,
the past invisible
as we burrow into love.
Here, I am no one's child
and no one's mother
following the silken thread
through the stillness of the maze.
After hours of talk and touch,
the moments in-between laced with silence,
like Heloise removing her pale garments,
I lie in the smooth mouth of sleep
until sunlight's chipping at the blinds
and the morning paper tossed against the door.
In the measuring of breath,
in the words between us and the looks,
balanced, cantilevered, interlocked,
we plot distances and chart the depths.
Out of sun and fog,
out of clover, mint and pennyroyal,
out of fragrances of fresh-cut grass
it's the two of us.
MARK SCOTT BAGULA
ALL COLORS MINE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am:
joyous in snow-light,
crying asphalt tears;
flavors of cognac-
sweet alcohol burnish-bite;
swift, winterburnt and eager-
like dimensions that give at edge.
I will:
this to be daylight-night:
waking without the years
bringing me back
(electric tonight);
felling me in blue pure
sky; and resting me on the ledge.
I go:
into mirage-mirror:,
step through without tearing;
kiss without asking;
and faint into knowing
resurrection, loss
and redemption.
MARK SCOTT BAGULA
MR. LAMBADA TONGUE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Latin romance inhabits
the curves of the words-
breaking them like a stride.
Strut of the pelvis enters
the room first:
with a warning thrust-
smooth shift, then burst
caramel soft, plush;
all four feet still
humping along,
humming a song:
Mr. Lambada tongue.
MARK SCOTT BAGULA
LIGHT
~~~~~
Rare morning of angry light-
prying and peering through window.
Summer covers bunched at feet.
Dreams broken at the elbow-
bent run back to the night.
I hate to face the day already beat.
Trudge the drudgery to afternoon-
oppressive steel lid over daybreak:
like night with gray light on the gloom.
Clock arms resist my pulling- make
my face red- embarrassed hope for moon
to mirror a star that will not bloom.
ROBERT JAMES BERRY
1. GROWING
My eyes have opened
My heart is thumping music
I hear
other musics
They do not concern me
I am unfurling my fingers
Stretching them through
crustacean-red water
My sky
has a roof of muscle
I can touch the sky
With my creased fingertips
I shall
suspend my pigmented thumb
in my new mouth
I shall
frown
and kick myself to sleep
I am miraculous
I have these dreams
This is my time
I should like things to stay this way
ROBERT JAMES BERRY
2. NEWBORN
Still bloody
Purple and crying
With pudgy fingers
Thinning hair
Our son is
A creased old man
A bawling sage
in woollen blankets
It is my savage superstition to pray
and give thanks
Now that they have
mopped shined you
made of you a serene swaddled infant
You are absolutely still
A mystic with no name
With sleep
You shall grow young
in this house
Strong-lunged
Round as the moon
ROBERT JAMES BERRY
3. THE CRAFT
A thought is forming
It bleeds a pagan syllable
one word of ancient blood
onto the page
At evening a blue haze pencils the horizon
Time closes over creation
broad burnished hands
The thought has grown
It is
a candle like morning
The wick is burning
When it is dark
When fog settles
And the thought is
A graven image to kneel at
Profuse soundless
Then it shall have children
They shall haul fishlike onto land
I am thinking of them
ROBERT JAMES BERRY
4. LOSS
The heart has stopped beating
They have shown me
It is a silent black
Sticky degenerate mass
I have carried this
Now I must wait
Till what was my life looses hold
and tissue and blood bleeds out
Then again there will be
nothing
In the next room
Another's is being born
They are smiling
There is shouting
Grief is too small a word
for this
I am mourning my own life
This is the end of time
ROBERT JAMES BERRY
5. THIS PAGAN SEA
This is a primitive sea
The water is like milt
Creation quivers in it
Soon life wriggles a reptilian tail
It grows strong
crimson
kicks
because it will kick
The water is full of this
As if with meaning
Life multiplies
There are cell clusters that
click like a puzzle solved
others swell an
abnormal head without reason
and die
This sea is pagan
Graven with one statement
That Time shall destroy
and the survivors
for now
shall watch
This is the word
World without end
Nothing else is written.
ROBERT JAMES BERRY
6. IKONS
The flame just burns
The incense coils only
fragrant smoke
God is enthroned on a lotus
his foot crushing demons
I search for pity
in the blank human face
imagine the image
looks back with understanding
That his thumb and finger guides
That his trident is raised to
slay my demons
At first I was angry
Now I am a sad child
Suddenly done with empty pictures
Ash falls on the altar cloth
The incense is cold now
I shall brush it away
like forgotten history
guide myself to the room within
and lock up
I am suddenly done with empty struggles.

A New Age: The Centipede Network Of
Artists, Poets, & Writers
An Informational Journey Into A Creative Echonet [9310]
(C) CopyRight "I Write, Therefore, I Develop" By Paul
Lauda

Come one, come all! Welcome to Newsgroup alt.centipede. Established
just for writers, poets, artists, and anyone who is creative. A
place for anyone to participate in, to share their poems, and
learn from all. A place to share *your* dreams, and philosophies.
Even a chance to be published in a magazine.
The original Centipede Network was created on May 16, 1993.
Created because there were no other networks dedicated to such
an audience, and with the help of Klaus Gerken, Centipede soon
started to grow, and become active on many world-wide Bulletin
Board Systems.
We consider Centipede to be a Public Network; however, its a
specialized network, dealing with any type of creative thinking.
Therefore, that makes us something quite exotic, since most nets
are very general and have various topics, not of interest to a
writer--which is where Centipede steps in! No more fuss. A writer
can now access, without phasing out any more conferences, since
the whole net pertains to the writer's interests. This means
that Centipede has all the active topics that any creative
user seeks. And if we don't, then one shall be created.
Feel free to drop by and take a look at newsgroup alt.centipede

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YGDRASIL: A Journal of the Poetic Arts - Copyright (c) 1993, 1994, 1995,
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